Alabama players preview Elite Eight matchup with Clemson Tigers

LOS ANGELES – Alabama basketball players Aaron Estrada, Rylan Griffen and Grant Nelson spoke to reporters on Friday afternoon before the Crimson Tide’s Elite Eight matchup with Clemson in the NCAA Tournament. Below is everything that the trio said.

*** Editor’s Note: Quotes are courtesy of ASAP Sport.

Q. Aaron, can you talk about Grant’s play a little bit? And you had a really good game as well. Seems like it’s obviously do or die at this point for you and your basketball career as well. That’s got to be exciting to be in the Elite Eight now.

AARON ESTRADA: Grant’s performance yesterday was historical, I feel like. And by the numbers, too. He was the fourth player to have 24 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks. That’s super big-time for him. I’m happy for him.

He kind of took over late in the second half like we needed him to. Everybody on our team pretty much knew he was capable of that. And just, like I said, just to see it happen in March, probably the biggest game of his career throughout his college career so far. I was really happy to see that from him.

And for myself, I just tried to stay aggressive and just take what the defense was giving me. Yes, it feels good to be in the Elite Eight.

Q. Rylan, you put great defense on RJ Davis, ACC Player of the Year, First-team All-American. What was your mentality going into the game with that?

RYLAN GRIFFEN: Don’t just let him get going. It was a team effort, I feel like. It was just me. I feel I got help from all my teammates. Made it hard on him. He’s a great scorer. I had to study a little extra for him.

But just knowing that he’s the ACC Player of the Year and taking the challenge, knowing that, I think they pretty much beat us in every other category. He just had a game that he normally doesn’t have. So I feel like that held him back a little bit and we were able to get the win.

Q. Are you always up for the challenge to do that?

RYLAN GRIFFEN: Oh, yeah, I just guard whoever Coach puts me on. I’m ready to guard whoever they put me on.

Q. Grant and Rylan, the last two games have been really tight until the final minutes. You finished strong both times. What allowed you to do that?

GRANT NELSON: I think all the preparation up to this point, especially our non-conference schedule had a big part of that. We scheduled playing against some of the best bigs and best guards in the nation.

I think even though we lost those games, we learned a lot. And I think like this is the best time of the year we can come together, and we have these past two games.

Q. The tight games, the last two, you finished up strong. What’s allowed that?

RYLAN GRIFFEN: Just staying together, being a team. We have already been through adversity before. Like he said, those six losses we’ve already seen adversity multiple times. So we know how to handle it a lot better.

And it’s win or go home now. Back then, it was, like, we knew we were going to be playing another game. Now we either fix it right now or the season’s over with and we’ll be in the locker room sad. So just knowing that and playing for each other, helping us close these games out.

Q. You played Clemson before. What do you remember about that game, it was in November? When you’re preparing for tomorrow night, do you go back and look at that game or do you care more about the recent games recently here in the tournament?

GRANT NELSON: I think there’s a lot to learn from the last time we played them, like, I think we fronted the post a little too much. Gave them too many angles, their bigs. And then we let their shooters get hot.

So I think we’ve got a lot to learn, but also I mean that was the beginning of the season, and I feel like a lot has changed for them. The same with us.

We’re definitely going to make some changes on the scouting report. And I think we’re going to do our best to do what we can to stop their best players from getting hot.

Q. Alabama is primarily a football school. Everybody knows Alabama as a school that’s winning national championships on the football field. Now as basketball team, you guys have something to do with that — no basketball team at Alabama has ever done before. What does it mean to have the Crimson Tide make its first Final Four in school history?

RYLAN GRIFFEN: It would mean a lot, just be probably legends on campus. They always say where legends are made. Making the Final Four would be — we would be a historic team in Alabama history. Being a part of that would be great.

It’s not going to be easy, for sure. Like Clemson is a great team. So in order for us to get that, we’re going to have to work really, really hard and play really, really hard and a really, really good game tomorrow. Focus on the game first and then all that other stuff comes after.

AARON ESTRADA: I kind of just agree with what Rylan’s saying. We’re more so just trying to focus on the game right now. Just look at the history behind it and everything after that.

Q. Aaron and Rylan, about Grant, what does his game do for the team? How does it open up things for everybody else?

AARON ESTRADA: I think Grant is a very versatile player. He showed yesterday he could shoot the 3 off the dribble, off the catch. He can take it in the post. He can drive. So I think for us and our offense it kind of just opens it up for everybody else, especially when he gets going because we have so many great shooters on our team.

So if they did start doubling or helping or whatever they wanted to do, we have a counter for it in every aspect.

Q. Rylan?

RYLAN GRIFFEN: For Grant, it’s definitely like playing with Chuck the first year, Grant a different year. They’re two different bigs defensively. Grant is a great mobile big. He can switch on the guards. Like yesterday he switched onto RJ Davis, made two big plays, tattooed big stops.

That’s something that wasn’t Chuck’s strengths but it’s Grant’s strengths. We play to Grant’s strengths on defense. He’s a big-time defender. He had five blocks. He’s in the company with Tim Duncan a lot of other hall of famers. He’s been great defensively lately, and he’s got a big challenge tomorrow, but we know he’s going to meet the challenge and accept it.

Q. For Trelly this was kind of a homecoming, back to California. Hasn’t been able to play. What have you said to him, and where is he at mentally?

RYLAN GRIFFEN: I talked to him. He said he wants to play. But he also wants us to win. So he doesn’t want to do anything — he’s handling his business with the doctors day-to-day or whatever. He’s just watching right now, but he’s been a great coach on the sidelines.

He’s not playing, and, of course, he wants to play, but he’s been a great coach on the sideline for us and getting us hyped and being a great teammate. Even though he’s not playing, we still feel his presence all over the court.

Q. You already talked about playing Clemson earlier this season. Is there any or a little bit of revenge factor in this game? Or is it all more what you all can accomplish reaching a Final Four?

AARON ESTRADA: I think as us being competitors, there’s definitely a revenge factor. Nobody wants to lose to a team twice, especially who you think you can beat. So I think that’s just going to add even more fuel to us, and it’s going to make us play harder.

Q. Aaron, when you entered the transfer portal, you’re a two-time conference player of the year, was there any difficulty in adjustment where one night you can be the guy who is putting up 20, and another you need to be the guy who is the defensive stopper. Was it difficult at all going from being the guy that your team was focused around to being part of the whole sort of overall the five?

AARON ESTRADA: I don’t think it was difficult. I think I adjusted pretty well. And I would say I’m a winner at the end of the day. I just want to win. So whatever the team needed me to do, whether to score that night, rebound, get assists, play defense, I’m going to do it. I think coming to Alabama was an easy adjustment for me.

Q. Grant, what’s life been like since last night? Are they partying at Devils Lake? Are you getting bombed with text messages? What’s happening?

GRANT NELSON: A lot of love coming from Devils Lake and North Dakota as a whole, which is amazing. Even before this game just making it to the tournament and winning the first two games I’ve been getting a lot of love even though I feel like I didn’t perform how I should have. I feel like I let my teammates down. But, yeah, a lot of love from North Dakota.

Q. Grant, just that first match-up against Clemson, what kind of match-up problems does Hall and Schieffelin present for you?

GRANT NELSON: They can both get rebounds, which hurt us last time. They’re both physical, and I think our scouting report wasn’t perfect. We didn’t follow it how we should have. We got a lot of adjustments to make. We’re still kind of learning our role defensively as a team, and I think we’ve grown a lot especially in these past three games. I think that will help going into this game.

Q. What happened in the last Clemson game that you’d like to see a turnaround? You mentioned the rebounding. Any other facets of the game you’d like to reverse?

RYLAN GRIFFEN: I would say we need to just guard the post a little bit better and we can’t let the shooters come off of screens as easy as they did and hit 3s. They were playing as good as anybody in the country at the time when they beat us.

And they had a little fallback, but now they’re back to playing like that team that we played earlier in the season, and so we’ve just got to make adjustments from that game. I think that’s a good game to go back and watch because it was against us; we already played them already. We should use that to our advantage.

We lost, so we obviously made a bunch of mistakes. So just watching that game and make sure that we don’t make those same mistakes and we come away with a win this time.

Q. Rylan or Aaron, Clemson, they really slowed down Arizona, made it more of a grind-it-out kind of game. I know you played a real high octane offensive game last night but against GCU, it was a more scrappy, physical game. Can that game prepare you guys for what you’ll face against Clemson?

AARON ESTRADA: Yeah, I think it can definitely prepare us, but I ultimately think it comes down to us getting stops. I think that’s what really creates our pace, and when we play fast is when we get stops. If we’re able to continue to get stops, we’ll be able to run on anybody that we play against.

Q. You all had a pretty good night shooting. Why was that? Did you like those rims? The lighting? What was the reason y’all shot so well?

RYLAN GRIFFEN: We were getting good shots. We shoot a lot in shoot-around. We know we’re going to have to shoot 3s in the game. And you know, it’s just confidence. I feel like when you shoot a lot of shots in the offseason, during the season and even right now, to shoot these type of shots in these type of games and make them, I think it’s just a confidence thing with us. Obviously everybody on the team, we feel like when they shoot the ball it’s going to go in. So just everybody having that confidence to be able to make shots.

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